Memories of Lilies
by Haakapainizi
Summary: My take on how Squall and Rinoa's relationship would possibly turn out after the end of the game. Mutilation and POV of unnamed character.


This took me 45 minutes and is also my first attempt at horror but it seemed to turn into a more of a mutilation story. None of the characters belong to me but the plot does.  
  
********* I remember how it started; how it ended and all that came in between the two extremes. I have seen two different people-mirror opposites, waging a crimson war in one body.   
  
Only there were many more bodies weren't there. Dozens stacked in piles, and for him they were the most glorious pieces of art. For him they were just decoration.   
  
Man was designed to change things, twist them, he'd said. I'd heard a similar phrase before but never in terms of other people before.   
  
From him I learned that life is a fragile thing.   
  
I also found it wasn't worth fighting for; failure was imminent..   
  
Now I sit and try to see farther than the insides of my eyelids. I used to think that I could see to the horizon.   
  
I heard from them the other day. News about Rinoa, I never knew her well but we all want it to be a success story for her if no one else. She is the epitome of our hope.   
  
I remember her and Squalls' wedding. We were happy; so was everyone else; so were they. But what I remember the most was the wreaths of white lilies adorning the heads of the flower girls; the pews and lectern; Squall and Rinoa. I seem to remember that it was because Rinoa wanted a white wedding, which was rather difficult in Balamb's climate.   
  
I remember the taste of the sparkling champagne and the headache that I received in reward the next day. I remember the touch of the many different species of cutlery, hard, cold and unyielding. I remember the scent of hundreds of celebration flowers. I remember the murmured vows.   
  
I remember when they found her. She was, at least, still alive and as far as I know still is. She couldn't kill herself after all, though that is what she may wish.   
  
I remember that it was Zell who found her. We all thought she'd gone a long time ago. It was luck she was found; her tongue had been removed.   
  
We know she can still hear: she nods, shakes her head, but she never smiles any more. It was the most horrifying sight I'd ever seen when she was brought out. Her legs had been amputated and the tendons in her arms, that were attached to her thumb-less hands, had been removed giving her the mirage of a grotesquely malformed doll. She still had her eyes. We like to think that she hadn't been there for over two years. That was when he realized that the pleading of terrified eyes was much more satisfying than the verbal and less subtle pleading, and started removing tongues instead. Her teeth were also missing.   
  
Now I sit and try to taste the tears that have gathered in the valley between my lips. The taste of salt now has faded and it is beyond my ability to care. I never used to be so apathetic towards life.   
  
We never did find Irvine.   
  
I remember being told by him why I'd been selected. He liked to discuss things, he'd said, with someone who was likely to have seen this type of thing before, during the Sorceress War.   
  
I remember nodding noncommittally in an attempt to urge him on. He told me what he'd been doing for the last three years.   
  
But what he didn't remember was that even I left the battlefield when trust and loyalty were too high a price to pay.   
  
Now I stand and try to feel the white silk ribbon under my fingers. I used to think that it felt like a stream of water frozen in place though strangely warm. I used to, ironically, have a very low pain threshold.   
  
I betrayed him. That knowledge burns brighter than the sun and yet is darker than the glimpses of an unattainable void between the stars. The pain of betrayal is the harshest and heaviest burden that I have ever had to carry.   
  
I remember how they found him. He'd seen them coming from a window and had impaled himself on what could have only been one of his 'instruments'.   
  
He probably enjoyed the pain. Pain was pure, he'd said, untainted.   
  
Now I walk and try to smell the quick, clean smell of the severed organs in my hand. I used to think they were beautiful but since them have never looked at them in the same way. Even my sense of smell lies to me.   
  
That was where we found them. Piles of bodies in supposedly vacant dormitories. Only fifty or so were recovered alive and none of them whole. The living were being kept in what was the infirmary. There were a few of 'specials' that were kept in separate rooms. Rinoa was one of them, Nida was another. The rest I didn't recognise and some didn't have a hope of ever being recognised.   
  
I remember that the rest of the day was spent finding euphemisms to describe the carnage that we found.   
  
I remember taste of bile in my mouth after seeing some of the worst. I remember the touch of soft, yielding, dead flesh beneath my hands. I remember the foul sickly sweet aroma of rot. I remember the buzzing of flies.   
  
I remember his funeral. There were no tears, only bitter regrets.  
  
Now I am here to visit his grave stone. I prefer to think of it as visiting the stone rather than him.   
  
I think of the others. It's lucky that none of us were that close any more. Selphie had gone back to conduct the running of the rebuilt Trabia Garden, Quistis went to Esthar where she is currently engaged to the Editor of a popular magazine, Zell is now Minister of Transport in Balamb - a very easy job considering that it has only one road and a one-way railway station, Seifer now owns a warehouse that sells discounted clothes, Fujin is a hotel manager, Squall...   
  
He said it: '''til death do us part''.   
  
Now I kneel by his gravestone and try to hear the screams of agony and grief that he has caused. I used to hear them sometimes. I have to laugh.   
  
The irony is crippling.   
  
I put down the flowers I brought, and now turn to leave. White lilies.   
  
I remembered. 


End file.
